In 06/07 we had Alan Smith and Louis Saha. Plus we signed Larsson on loan. also need to remember what a freak of nature Ronaldo was/is.
I don’t think Berbatov did improve us much but you can see that Fergie wasn’t comfortable relying on Roo/Ron as our main goalscorers and consistently tried to get some experience alongside them.
I think I need to end this post with some disclaimers, to head off obvious retorts (not from you, personally, just in general)
a) Nothing in the OP implies Ole’s management/coaching isn’t also problem. It may well be.
b) I’m not saying we need to sell (or even drop) either of them. Just that we’re going to remain inconsistent so long as we consistently rely so heavily on young players like these to be our primary goal threat. Hence every other elite club has at least one main attacker in his prime, age-wise (I think? Willing to be corrected on this)
c) It’s a long shot but Cavani might fix this problem. Fecking delighted to see him get off the mark anyway.
Come on Pogue, Alan Smith was basically a mediocre midfielder by that point. Our league winning attack in 06/07 was Rooney, Ronaldo, Saha and Giggs. Until Saha got injured, and we brought in Larsson. They started almost every game, with Ole making a few cameos in his swansong.
That's not very far away from what we have now in terms of the typologies you're focusing on. Rooney was incredibly inconsistent throughout 06/07. Ronaldo was incredibly inconsistent prior to that point, then suddenly became consistent. So this looks more like the team midway through 05/06, potentially ready to explode.
A big part of our free flowing attack in 06/07 came from Carrick and Scholes providing a base that hadn't existed in years, and Evra and Vidic clicking into gear. With Cavani a direct Larsson comparison too, albeit Larsson made a very small impact. Our subsequent attacking signings in 2007 and 2008 arguably led to a less effective attack, in each year. Adding experience in attack certainly wasn't the missing piece, in any case. Having a great defence yo fall back on when the attackers misfired became increasingly important.
Can we give the two inconsistent attackers that kind of boosted support? Probably not. Are they potentially as good individuals. Probably not. But the general question of whether you can succeed with two inconsistent young attackers was raised in 2006 too. It has been asked and answered at this stage.